Canada's
men's eight rowing team members Gabriel Bergen, right to left,
Douglas Csima, Rob Gibson, Conlin McCabe, Malcolm Howard, Andrew
Byrnes, Jeremiah Brown, Will Crothers, and cox Brian Price catch
their breath after placing second in the repechage and earning
themselves a spot in the Olympic finals at Eton Dorney at the 2012
Summer Olympics in Dorney, England on Monday, July 30, 2012.

(The Canadian Press)

Canada's
men's eight rowing team members Gabriel Bergen, right to left,
Douglas Csima, Rob Gibson, Conlin McCabe, Malcolm Howard, Andrew
Byrnes, Jeremiah Brown, Will Crothers, and cox Brian Price catch
their breath after placing second in the repechage and earning
themselves a spot in the Olympic finals at Eton Dorney at the 2012
Summer Olympics in Dorney, England on Monday, July 30, 2012.

London 2012

A lone man sits in an empty section of seats inside Earls Court during during a women's volleyball preliminary match between China and Turkey at the 2012 Summer Olympics Monday, July 30, 2012, in London.
Associated Press

video

Canada's Emilie Heymans and Jennifer Abel celebrate their bronze medals following the women's synchronized 3-metre springboard final at the Aquatic Centre at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London on Sunday, July 29, 2012.
The Canadian Press

video

Indeed, the Canadian boat finished an embarrassing 12 seconds behind the
Germans. In rowing terms, that’s a century.

A lot can change in 48 hours, however. On a brisk, sunny Monday morning here,
the Canadians looked nicely competitive once again, perhaps even dangerous. In
the repechage, the crew placed second, behind the British, guaranteeing them a
berth Wednesday in the medal race, the marquis event in the Olympic rowing
calendar.

It was an impressing turnaround. By the Canadians’ own admission, they looked
like amateurs in their debut heat last Saturday.

Crewmember Conlin McCabe
compared the performance to “panicking in a pool, splashing.” Coxswain Brian
Price said they rowed “like a bunch of kids” and admitted he had trouble
steering the long, pencil-thin boat.

The turnaround was remarkable. Among the six boats in the race Monday, the
Canadians had the fastest second half in the two-kilometre m event. Their final
surge meant they finished just half a second behind the winning boat.

It took two days of soul searching, and perhaps a low-grade collective
nervous breakdown, to get the Canadians back in the game. After taking gold in
Beijing in 2008, another disaster on Monday would have been a national
embarrassment for Canada and a devastating blow to the crew and their
coaches.

The team’s high-performance director, Peter Cookson, called the surge “a really good sign.”
Translation: Don’t count us out, a medal is in the offing.

What went wrong last Saturday? A bad case of the nerves, it appears.

Don’t forget that the crew isn’t the same one that turned the rowing pond in
Beijing into Canada’s mare nostrum. Only three of the current crop – Andrew
Byrnes, Malcolm Howard and Price – were on the
gold-medal boat. The others are newbies, excited and nervous about their Olympic
debut, evidently to the point of distraction.

McCabe blamed “a little bit of
nerves, this was the first time for most of us, there’s anxiety.”

On Sunday, the crew did what they called a “reset” to make sure they wouldn’t
repeat their disastrous performance in the repechage Monday. They relaxed and
decided to slow down their rowing cadence a bit, giving them longer, more
powerful strokes.

They also took encouragement from the fine showing by the Canadians in the
women’s eight. On Sunday, the
girls easily won their heat, over Romania and the Netherlands, to advance to the
final Thursday.

“They go out and light it up,” Price said. “Why can’t we go out and do that?
That’s the way I see it.”

The Canadian men were beaming after their Monday race, happy with their
turnaround, even if they could not beat the Britons, and confident that they
will shine in the final. “This is a much better representation of the sort of
crew we are,” McCabe said.

In spite of the fine performance Monday, however, the Canadians are not
assured gold, or even silver, given the strong field.

The Germans are the nautical juggernauts. They have not lost a race in three
years and have won the world championship three years running. Kristof Wilke is
considered the strongest German rower. He is only one of two German rowers left
over from the Beijing challenge, where the team ended up eighth, and is
determined to use the London Games to make up for the shabby performance. “The
Germans are certainly front-runners, but not unbeatable,” McCabe said.

Two days ago, the Canadians were thinking everyone could beat them. Now
they’re medal contenders once again.

Meanwhile the men’s four of Will Dean of Kelowna, B.C., Anthony Jacob of Vancouver, Derek
O’Farrell of Montreal and Michael
Wilkinson of North Vancouver, B.C. placed third in their heat Monday morning to
advance to the semi-finals in the event.

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